Jake Shields underestimated the effect of Denver’s altitude and suffered in a 15-minute clash with Ed Herman. But that didn’t stop him from dominating the fight on the mat en route to a unanimous decision.

The middleweight bout was part of the main card of Saturday’s UFC 150 event at Pepsi Center in Denver. It aired on pay-per-view following prelims on FX and Facebook.

One minute after the fight began, Herman’s strategy became clear. Instead of trade punches with Shields, who initially kept him off-balance with kicks as he retorted with straight punches, he pressed the action to the fence, where the two battled for position. A sneaky trip from Shields briefly put Herman on the mat, and he courted danger by giving the former Strikeforce champ his back. But he escaped, and the two continued to trade places against the cage until the first frame expired.

Herman again pressed for a takedown to open the second, but Shields managed to catch him off balance and put the fight down. Shields toyed with Herman from top position and nearly secured a kimura, but Herman managed to escape to guard position. Still, he remained on bottom, where Shields scored points with ground and pound.

Advised by his cornermen to get moving on his punches, Herman pressed the action and tried to score with a series of big uppercuts. Shields, though, managed to connect with a punch that gave him the time to take the fight to the mat.

There, the fight turned into a vintage performance for Shields, who controlled Herman, took mount, and settled into a steady rhythm of ground and pound that, while not particularly devastating, scored points.

In the end, two of three judges saw Shields pitching a shutout on scorecards. The other gave him two, for final tallies of 29-28, 30-27, and 30-27.

“Fighting at middleweight I like, but the altitude definitely slowed my pace down,” Shields admitted afterward. “It was a little embarrassing, but props to Ed Herman. Hopefully next time it won’t be at altitude, and I can come here and give a lot more and show the kind of fighter I was when I fought Dan Henderson.”

Shields (28-6-1 MMA, 3-2 UFC) starts his second stint as a middleweight at 1-0 and now boasts back-to-back wins following a decision over Yoshihiro Akiyama. Herman (20-8 MMA, 7-6 UFC) sees a three-fight win streak snapped.

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